DENVER, CO - What does a brand say? Whether it is consumer- or industry-facing, it is a promise to your audience. For the Center for Produce Safety’s (CPS) new brand, the promise is clear: to help fuel produce safety change. At the center’s 2024 Annual Research Symposium on June 18-19 in Denver, Colorado, the produce safety-centric research organization revealed a bold new logo and visual branding, strengthening its commitment to the CPS mission.

Board Chair Joe Pezzini of Taylor Farms and CPS Executive Director Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli unveiled the new branding to a full house of industry members and produce safety stakeholders. In an effort to continue sharing the organization’s dedication to the message, CPS Board Director Amy Gates of ALG Unlimited gives us an exclusive peek behind the CPS rebrand.

“We wanted a brand that would help CPS energize the third part of our produce safety mission: fund science, find solutions, and fuel change,” Amy shares, pulling back the curtain on the intention and the process. “The new visual evokes two of our core principles: continuous improvement and collaboration. Both of those principles are key to fueling change.”

Featuring intertwining arcs wrapping around the letters C, P, and S, the new logo calls to mind interlocked hands, or the symbol for infinity, Amy reveals. The graphic, its font, and related earth-toned color palette are modern and inviting, she adds.

“The new branding has already made its first appearance in an annual report CPS distributed to symposium attendees that summarizes the 2023 accomplishments of the CPS community. The brand will soon begin appearing across all CPS communications vehicles, traditional and digital, over the coming months,” Amy details. “While our focus will always be first and foremost on the science, you are going to see more visual style and cohesiveness from CPS moving forward across all our communications channels. This will help us better spread the word about produce safety knowledge to all of the industry.”

When I ask Amy about the genesis of such a project, she tells me that the new branding was the result of a months-long project that began with input from CPS’s Executive Committee, and then the entire Board of Directors.

The rebranding project was managed for CPS by Julia Stewart of Clarity Communications LLC, New Orleans, Louisiana. A brand style guide and branded collateral were developed by Karyn Baskette with Yondee Designs, Ashburn, Virgina. The logo art itself was created by AS Creative Services, Kensington, Maryland.

“We are excited to bring this new brand to life in the months ahead and share this journey with our colleagues and the greater industry as well,” Amy concludes.

With such gravity in its values and investment in its promise to the industry, CPS is reinforcing its food safety message for the standard of all.

Please keep checking back with AndNowUKnow for the latest on CPS endeavors, efforts, and initiatives as the organization seeks to evolve the way we understand, commit to, and execute food safety.